Phantom
by Avid Vampire Hunter
Summary: UlquiHime AU: For eleven years he had watched her. Protected her. Loved her. All from behind a mirror. But when the woman he adores is sought after by a powerful bachelor, Ulquiorra's subdued passion finally bubbles to the surface. Will he be able to claim her heart for his own, or is it already too late? Inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera."


**Phantom**

_Avid Vampire Hunter_

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**Chapter I:** Through the Glass

Dismal darkness sunk through every wall, the continuous _drip_,_ drip_ echoing through the empty catacombs.

Well… almost empty.

A small form shifted in the darkness. Once, then twice. With a silent, rasped huff, the figure rose.

Covered in mud and grime on nearly every part of his body, a young boy stood on flimsy legs. His breathing came in short, labored pants. He barely took a step forward before he could hardly support his own weight anymore. He crashed against a nearby surface; a wall. Dirt encrusted hair fell against his cheek as he struggled to stand upright again.

With a drive rising from an unknown source, the young boy shuffled forward, bracing against the craggy wall all the while, feebly grasping at its jagged outcroppings. He hissed in pain. The boy was naked, and the raw, scabbed skin under his feet created sharp needles of fire with every step, every breath he took.

The tunnel was nearly as filthy as he was. The black abyss before him threatened to swallow him whole, to steal away any light it could find. Somehow he knew that it would find no such light within him.

Eventually, a flicker caught his eye. He looked up. A dim orb floated and hiccupped light in the distance.

Natural human instinct is to move toward light. For self preservation; sanity. The boy felt no such instinct. No such fear. No drive or desperation because of a small fleck of hope. Hope was forbidden to him long ago.

And this is exactly why he pressed on.

Pain after pain vibrated behind his skin, throbbing ferociously until it became nothing but numbness. After what felt like eternity, the boy finally reached the source. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

The darkness melted away into light before him, bordered on every side. A seal. A doorway into another world.

Gingerly, the curious child reached a hand forward. His nails were crusted and filthy, just like the rest of him. Nearly every inch of his skin was covered in some disgusting substance.

When his hand smacked against something solid he couldn't see, the edges of his eyes widened slightly in surprise. He immediately winced after, however, reaching to find one of his eyes swollen.

He realized that the surface before him was not space, but translucent matter. Glass. Yes, he was very familiar with such a thing, although it had never been in one piece. The harder and longer he looked, the more of himself he could see.

An ugly creature with green eyes stared back at him, into his very void of a soul. Memory after memory of his appearance slowly flooded into his mind.

Dirt mixed with salted water fell down his cheeks, tracing over marks covered in smut. He knew they were there, the trails of a devil's child.

In the low light of his reflection he could see his eye swollen and crusted in something just a little more red than the others. Patches of pale skin and bone-thin legs highlighted his bleeding feet.

A sudden rusted squeak stole his attention forward, coming from the side opposite the glass.

"Come child, it is late. You must retire."

A tall woman slowly and gently ushered in a young girl covered head to toe in black. After some shuffling and lighting a few more candles, which still didn't add much luminescence, the woman supplied a small nightgown and laid them on a dresser before her. The shrouded girl neither moved nor spoke.

The woman smoothed a hand over the girl's clothed hair. The boy behind the glass could not see her face or the color of her hair, but could easily see her clutching something tightly to her chest.

"I will be just down the hall if you need me," the woman paused, and kneeled down before the child, wrapping her in a tight embrace, "I am very sorry about your brother, Miss Inoue." After a pregnant moment of silence, and again no response from the girl in black, the woman left, closing the heavy wooden door behind her.

The boy kept his breathing quiet and shallow, afraid of being heard and eventually captured.

He watched with rapt attention as the only other person around suddenly reached up and pushed the hood of her cloak away from her head.

Brightly blazing hair bounced out, and he only see an outline of her face, for she was still facing away from him. Her hair was sloppily cut, one side ghastly shorter than the other. He didn't blink.

When the girl turned toward him, all time froze.

She was looking straight at him. Or, through him. He couldn't tell. He didn't care. She sniffled, and his breath caught in his throat.

Suddenly she was closer. How did she get so close? His heart thumped and pounded wildly against his chest, making breathing more difficult than it already had been. He was suddenly enveloped in a world of something both warm and cold, good and evil, life and death.

He was utterly lost to everything around him. Her eyes were the first thing his own decided to capture. They were red and puffed, overflowing with tears. Soft grey became the world, and the world was also scattered with rich fields of soft brown. He had never seen anyone like this. She was so beautiful. Everything became worthless but the need to reach out and see if she was real.

The girl's grip on whatever she was holding became slack. It was enough for the boy to see the faded face of a man pasted sloppily on a cut of wood. He realized it was a picture. His wandering trail of thought was immediately slapped back into place when she moved.

The orange haired girl raised an arm, fraily laying a hand against the surface opposite him. He watched her palm smush against the glass. The boy could only continue to stare in wonder as she leaned closer to him.

As if in a trance, he raised his own hand, wincing at the pain that shot up his arm. He placed his to hers, bracing his shoulder against the wall in a desperate effort to stay standing.

Then she spoke.

Her voice was so soft and quiet, shaking from the effort to hold back her tears. He, in turn, couldn't tear his eyes away.

"Y-you… are not… ugly…"

His breath caught in his throat.

"Y-you, you are… not… worthless…" She rested her small head against the glass, and the arm holding the picture dropped limply to her side, then fell loosely to the floor. Tears soon followed, dripping from her chin and plopping one after the other onto the floor, each one shining like a precious jewel in the low light around them. "You," she sniffed, "are not… alone."

Her words stirred something in him like nothing else ever had before. And even though he knew they were not spoken to him, they were meant for him. And he suddenly realized something, something he had never experienced.

She was like him.

Waves of loneliness crashed over him, every one from the girl before him. He had been alone for so long, surrounded by darkness.

But now she was here, and she was like him.

The weakness in his body suddenly became worthless, and he stood up straight. Tall. He recognized a crippling soul when he saw one, and he needed to help her. She needed someone to lead her in the dark.

He leaned his head forward against the one-way glass. "You, are… not alone," his voice rasped quietly. It didn't sound like his own. When was the last time he had spoken?

She looked up, grey eyes searching. She'd heard him.

"Brother…?"

The boy didn't answer. He was no one's brother, and he knew that for a fact. She was mistaken, the man in the picture was dead. Gone.

But if her brother was what she needed, then he had no heart to deny her.

Still, he could not bring himself to speak. They both stood in silence, searching, waiting, _wanting_. And the two of them stayed that way even after the candlelight flickered, waned, and finally died.

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**Author's note: **I know, I know, I should be working on P&P. My muse was kind of screaming this idea at me, and I wanted to see how it would turn out. Please let me know what you thought. [I've actually had this idea for a while... It was about time I started writing it~] I love hearing from you!

*hugs* -Avi


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